`The truth is there was not one Harriet, but two: the girl you knew and loved; and the other Harriet, the girl with the secrets; the girl you did not really know at all.'
The Murder of Harriet Monckton is based on a true story that shocked and fascinated the nation.
On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, twenty-three years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the privy behind the dissenting chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The townsfolk are appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the autopsy
reveals that Harriet was almost six months pregnant. Drawing on the original coroner's reports and true witness testimonies,
Elizabeth Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet Monckton's final days through the eyes of those closest to her: her fellow teacher and companion, her would-be fiance, her seducer, and her former landlord and lover. All are suspects. Each has a reason to want her dead.
